


Jaquemart XII - In A Gallery of Shadows (i. penumbra)

by alanharnum



Series: Jaquemart [14]
Category: Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 18:45:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13172943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alanharnum/pseuds/alanharnum





	Jaquemart XII - In A Gallery of Shadows (i. penumbra)

JAQUEMART  
by  
Alan Harnum

Utena and its characters belongs to Be-PaPas, Chiho Saito,   
Shogakukan, Shokaku Iinkai and TV Tokyo.

This copy of the story is from my Archive of Our Own page at http://archiveofourown.org/users/alanharnum/pseuds/alanharnum.

 

XII. In a Gallery of Shadows

i. penumbra

* * *

At least it was a lovely night, for such an event. The snow had  
begun to melt as soon the sun rose that day, and now lay in only  
scattered patches. But dead grass and bare earth and leafless   
trees gave testament to the fact that winter's grip had only   
recently relaxed, and the crisp bite of the air warned that it   
could tighten again at any time; the sky overhead was clear and  
cloudless and full of stars as the four of them made their way   
across Ohtori's grounds.

"It seems really different," Utena murmured as she walked  
beside Nanami, with Juri and Shiori a few steps behind.

Nanami, looking a little unsteady in her high heels,   
glanced over. "Well, it has been seven years for you. Of course  
it would seem different."

"I mean, from yesterday," Utena explained. "When I was here  
last night, everything felt really dead. Cold. Like a tomb."   
She shivered a bit at the memory. "Now... it's not so bad."

"It's probably only that the snow has begun to melt,"   
Nanami said. She paused for a moment and craned her head back.  
"Though I must admit, the stars are nice."

Utena shivered at that as well. Nanami obviously noticed,   
because she asked, "What's wrong?"

"Akio said that once. Or something like it." She stuffed  
her hands into the pocket of her coat and stared at the ground  
passing beneath her feet; the odd, fragmentary conviction that  
the ground moved beneath her, rather than that she moved over the  
ground, occured to her, and was almost instantly and logically  
discarded. "He was big on stars. Or pretended to be. I know  
you saw his projector."

"Yes. Ugly thing." Nanami scowled faintly and said nothing  
more, perhaps in an attempt to stop the line of conversation.

Utena, heeding her, changed the subject. "How do you walk  
in those heels, anyway?"

"Practice," Nanami said. The scowl dissolved into a faintly  
rueful frown. "You're still taller than me, though."

Utena chuckled. "Well, that's why I get to be the prince,   
and you get to be the princess, I guess."

Nanami stopped dead. "What?" she asked, pure glacial ice.

Utena, confused, indicated Nanami with one sweep of her   
hand, and herself with another. "I just mean, you're in a dress,  
and I'm in..." She gestured at the long, glossy black of her  
slacks (very fashionable, according to Juri, and hideously   
expensive, in Utena's estimation). "So, you see... prince...   
princess..."

Nanami's expression made it perfectly clear that she found  
nothing at all funny in the comparison. "Juri was the one who  
said you should wear that," she said.

"Well, yeah, but you paid for it, so..."

"That's only because I had the credit card," Nanami snapped.  
Spinning on her heel (quite a feat, in those shoes), she stalked  
away towards the distant, well-lit Kanae Memorial Hall.

Utena watched her go, mystified, as Juri and Shiori caught  
up. 

"What happened?"

She shrugged at Juri. "I don't know. I made a joke about   
me being the prince and her being the princess, because, you   
know, she said that I was taller than her even when she had heels  
on, and because, umm..." She trailed off. "I guess it wasn't a  
very good joke, huh?"

"Nanami's just oversensitive," Shiori said. Beneath her  
winter jacket, she wore a dark red dress, high-necked. It looked  
good on her. Juri, whose chosen outfit was not dissimilar to the  
one she'd picked out for Utena during their afternoon shopping   
trip, just smiled faintly. 

Embarassed, Utena muttered something about catching up, and   
hurried off after Nanami. Nanami being in high heels and Utena  
being in flats, it didn't take long.

"Hey, umm..."

"What?" Nanami's voice was stiff and pointedly unconcerned.

"Look, it was just a joke. It didn't mean anything."

"Some jokes shouldn't be made," Nanami huffed. Up ahead lay  
Kanae Memorial Hall, tall and full of light. Even rows of rising  
pillars flanked the front steps, and more pillars walled in the  
enclosed cloister that shielded the broad front door. 

"Sorry," Utena said lamely. "I didn't realize you'd take it  
like that."

"I'm nobody's princess. Particularly not yours," Nanami   
said briskly. "Come on, let's get inside; my legs are freezing."

Utena glanced briefly at Nanami's white-hosed legs as they  
walked. "Maybe you should have worn a longer jacket."

"My longer jacket has a big hole in the side from your  
adventure last night."

Utena winced. They climbed up the steps (swept so clean  
that not even a grain of snow was visible on the pristine white  
stone), and Utena pulled the front door open by its ornate iron  
handle; side by side, they stepped into the light and the warmth  
of the front hallway, and were greeted by the girl within.

"Good evening. You're here for the gallery opening?"

Suddenly, Utena found Nanami clinging to her arm. The  
speaker was a tall girl in black pants and a black-trimmed   
Council jacket. Utena suppressed the urge to scowl.

"Yes," she replied coolly; she could feel Nanami trembling  
through the tight grip on her arm. "Tenjou Utena and Kiryuu  
Nanami."

"Welcome. I'm Akino Akami, the Student Council President."  
Utena had known who she was from the moment she'd spotted her.  
She probably wouldn't have liked her even if she'd never heard of  
her before; her eyes were predatory and cold. "Your names,   
indeed, are on the guest list," she said, consulting the   
clipboard in her pale hands. "Please follow the signs to the  
gallery. Thank you so much for coming."

"Glad to be here," Utena said. Nanami squeaked something  
that might have been an echoing of that. They moved by Akino  
Akami without another word, Utena urging Nanami along and trying  
to be unobtrusive about doing so. As they passed by, Utena shot  
a quick glance at the case, and winced; full of photos of Ohtori  
Kanae, and objects that had presumably belonged to her.

"Gonna let go of my arm any time soon?" she asked, after  
they were some distance away. 

Nanami veritably yanked herself away. "Be careful," she   
said. "I don't like the way she was looking at you."

"I just assumed she looked at everyone like that."

Nanami shook her head. "Not like she was looking at you.   
It was like she wanted to swallow you up. Consume you. Be   
careful."

"Huh? Weird." Utena scratched her head; at the direction  
of a sign with a pointing finger on it, they made a left turn.   
"Anyway, don't worry about her; if she tries anything, I'll kick  
her ass. Half-inclined to already."

"Oh?"

"She hurt you," Utena said simply, at Nanami's apparent  
confusion. "I won't put up with people hurting my friends."

Nanami laughed softly, faintly bitter. "Don't think I need  
you to stick up for me, Utena." 

"Well, you didn't do too good a job of it back there," Utena  
said bluntly. "Look, whatever else she may be, she's a bully,  
and bullies love to see people afraid of them. So don't show her  
you're afraid of her." She smiled gently, trying to soften any  
harsh edge to her words. "That means you don't cling to my arm   
next time you run into her, for one."

Nanami humphed and didn't say anything. At the end of the  
long bright hallway they were currently following, high double  
doors were thrown open, and beyond them they could see people  
milling about, talking to one another, indulging in food and   
drink from long tables, and examining paintings that were too  
distant to make out any details of.

"That's Tsuwabuki's friend. Hozumi Mari," Nanami murmured  
to Utena as they approached the doors. The girl wore the Council  
jacket and and a purple skirt slashed with a jagged white   
pattern, and stood before the doors with a stack of folded   
programs in her hand.

"Kiryuu," she said, "didn't know you were invited to this."

"Hello, Mari," Nanami said, smiling pleasantly at the other  
girl. "This is Tenjou Utena."

"Hozumi Mari. Nice to meet you," Mari said. 

"Nice to meet you."

Mari handed them each a program. "The first half of the   
reception will go on until about nine, and then..." She   
shrugged. "Well, it's all on the program. Enjoy."

Nanami looked into the gallery and put on a very poorly  
feigned expression of surprise. "Oh! There's somebody I know--  
Utena, pardon me. Why don't you introduce yourself to Mari-san?   
I bet you two would get along really well if you got to know each  
other."

She breezed through the doors, leaving Utena and Mari alone.

"Hey," said Utena.

"Yes?" Mari asked.

"What happened to your eye?" Utena asked, then wished she  
hadn't. The makeup had been carefully applied, but it couldn't  
fully disguise the fresh bruise.

"Fell down," Mari replied. "You're kind of nosy, aren't  
you?"

"Yeah. Failing of mine." Utena rubbed the back of her head  
nervously. "Sorry. So, how do you know Nanami?"

"She used to have my friend as her personal slave about   
seven years back."

"Tsuwabuki Mitsuru." Utena smiled faintly. "He was a nice  
kid."

"Yeah," Mari said, a bit wistfully. "He was." She   
straightened suddenly, and her eyes went guardedly blank. "You  
should get in there and leave your coat off at the coat check.   
You're probably hot."

Behind her, Utena heard footsteps; she glanced back, and, as  
she'd thought, saw Juri and Shiori approaching, their coats off   
and over their arms. "Juri, Shiori, have you met Hozumi Mari?"

"I don't believe I've had the pleasure," Juri said. "So,  
you're on the Council as well? I was just talking to the   
current President."

"Yes; I'm this year's treasurer."

"Really? That was my position..."

Utena headed inside, leaving Juri and Shiori to talk to   
Mari. The girl was scared, obviously, and with good reason; but  
maybe now that she saw Nanami had friends and allies, she'd let   
herself be helped.

Inside, the gallery was high--three stories, taking up one  
entire wing of the building--and full of people. Most of them  
looked like students and faculty of Ohtori, dressed to the nines  
for what was obviously considered a major social event. Had any  
of them, she wondered, known Kozue? Known about her? Did they  
have any knowledge of all about the dead girl whom this gallery  
was being opened in memory of? She didn't see Nanami anywhere.  
Or Miki. Or Akio.

Mari was right. She was hot with her coat on. She pulled   
it off and carried it loosely in one hand; immediately, she felt  
quite a few eyes, male and female both, fall upon her. She  
couldn't resist a smile; the vaguely military outfit Juri had   
picked out for her certainly was striking, with its black slacks  
and white jacket trimmed in red. And it did feel nice, despite  
everything, to dress up and go out like this. The last time   
she'd been to something even vaguely like this would have been  
the Christmas party with all of Anthy's co-workers; Anthy had  
looked really nice, in that blouse she had, the one with...

"You know, you do look better in that than in the dress I  
gave you all those years ago."

She looked up, stirred from her thoughts, and stifled a  
frown. "Hi, Touga. Nice tux."

He preened slightly. "I need to look my best for something  
like this." He leaned in close to speak softly to her. "Are you  
sure your being here is a good idea?"

"No," she answered. "But if Akio expected me to frighten me  
off by sending me an invitation to it, guess again."

"Why would he try to frighten you off by sending you an  
invitation?" Touga murmured quizzically.

Utena moved a step away from him, feeling his presence a bit  
too closely. "I dunno. You probably know how his mind works a  
lot better than I do."

"Utena, please," Touga said, sounding pained.

"Please what?"

"You know what I'm talking about," he murmured.

"Where's the coat check?" she asked, glancing around as   
though in search of it.

He pointed to one corner of the room, where a door stood   
half-open, and she began to walk towards it. He followed.

"Don't hang around me," she said. "I mean, we shouldn't be  
seen together at this. It could be dangerous for you, and for  
me. People will get suspicious."

"I am what I am," he said, smiling faintly. "It would be  
more suspicious if I didn't pay attention to the most beautiful  
woman in the room."

"Stop it." Despite herself, she couldn't hold back a faint  
blush. "Go bother someone else. Maybe your sister." Utena   
paused and looked at him gravely. "You really do need to talk to  
her, you know."

"I tried," he said defensively. "She didn't really want to  
listen."

"Are you surprised by that?"

"No," he replied after a moment, "I suppose I shouldn't be.  
Take care of yourself." He drifted away and was soon lost to the   
crowd. 

Utena, troubled by the conversation, walked into the coat   
check room.

"Tenjou Utena?!?"

"You!"

For a moment, she and her former nemesis from the guidance  
department stared at each other in shock, blue eyes into  
rhinestone glasses. Utena tried to remember the woman's name,  
and failed; in fact, she couldn't remember if she'd ever even  
known what it was.

"I see you're still wearing those weird outfits," the   
teacher said finally.

"Hey, this is the latest fashion," Utena protested. "You're  
the coat check?"

The teacher gestured at the racks of hangars behind the  
counter. "Obviously," she said.

"Here." Utena handed her coat over; the teacher hung it on  
the rack, attached a tag to it, and handed a tag to Utena.

"Make sure you keep that; you _won't_ get your coat back  
without it."

"Are you trying to make that sound like a threat?"

Before the teacher could make a reply, something yapped   
faintly from behind the counter. She blanched, knelt down  
behind the counter, and began a hurried, whispered   
conversation.

"Pr�cieux, darling, you know that mommy said she could only  
bring you if you would be quiet..."

Utena peeked over the counter. "Hey, cute dog," she said.

Pr�cieux, who looked rather like a large rat with several  
artfully-arranged tufts of white fur, yapped shrilly up at her.  
The teacher looked horribly embarassed.

Utena leaned her elbows on the counter and smirked. "You  
know, I remember how you once almost chewed my head off for  
bringing a pet to school..."

"He gets lonely without his mommy," the teacher said,  
looking embarassed. "Look at his little eyes; I can't bear to   
see him sad. And he wanted to come so badly..."

"Hey, don't worry about it. I won't tell anyone." Nice, in  
a way, to see that the woman had a human side after all. "How'd  
you end up on coat check, anyway?"

The teacher gave Pr�cieux a pat on the head and straightened  
up again. "The Chairman asked for a volunteer. I was so very  
eager to help him out..."

"Uhh, yeah." Suddenly uncomfortable, Utena turned to go.  
"See you."

"Au revoir, Tenjou."

Heading out the door, intent on securing the claim tag in   
her breast pocket (fashionable though it might be, the pocket was  
so shallow as to be almost useless), Utena collided with someone  
and nearly fell. A slim hand on her elbow steadied her as she  
looked up in order to begin profusely apologizing.

"Quite all right," Akino Tokiko said, not unkindly, as the  
words sank back into Utena's throat at the sight of her face.   
"No need to apologize." She pushed Utena's elbow up slightly to  
straighten her, and moved by into the coat check room, doffing  
her long trenchcoat and broad hat to hand them across.

When she came back out, Utena was waiting. "Didn't expect  
to see you here," she said conversationally, arms folded over her  
chest.

Tokiko fixed a penetrating gaze on her. "Are you going to  
make me regret I spared your life?"

"I doubt it," Utena replied. "Somehow, you don't strike me  
as the type to kill someone just because they might be an  
inconvenience to you."

Tokiko, who looked quite fetching in a cream-coloured blouse  
and skirt, headed over towards the nearest bar table with Utena   
trailing in her wake. "You speak as though you've known me for   
years," she said, frowning as she accepted a glass of wine from   
the waiter.

"Well, I know who you are," Utena said. "Akino Tokiko,   
formerly Chida Tokiko. You're the aunt of Akino Hasuichi and  
Akino Akami." She pursed her lips and wracked her brain for   
more. "And you knew Mikage and Akio a long time ago. Except  
Mikage's name was Nemuro back then. I'm not too clear on why."

"You've obviously done your homework," Tokiko said, sipping  
her wine. She took another glass from the table and offered it  
to Utena. 

Utena accepted it, tasted; it was white, tart, and very   
good. A thought occured to her. "Hey, did you know Anthy, too?  
I kind of wondered why she wasn't in the photo with you and Akio  
and Mikage..."

"I don't remember any such photo ever being taken," Tokiko  
said quietly. She began to walk away from the bar table; Utena  
followed. "As for Anthy... I met her, yes."

"You're a lot more forthcoming than last time."

"The setting is more conducive to conversation."

"Gonna try to rape anyone's mind this time?"

Tokiko almost imperceptibly winced. "It's not like that."

"Oh? Then what is it?"

"Just a way of getting to know someone quickly."

"That's how you like to think of it, huh? And how about   
where you rearrange their memories; what's that, from your  
perspective?"

The older woman sipped her wine and appeared lost in thought  
for a moment before she responded. "Look, I don't need to   
justify myself to you."

"You know, I get that a lot," Utena muttered. "And I'm kind  
of sick of hearing it."

"Sorry," Tokiko said, clearly not sorry at all. "You and  
your friends would do best to just stay out of my way."

"Yeah, and you'd do best to keep the hell away from my  
friends," Utena said, taking a step towards the other woman in  
order to make a minute intrusion into her personal space. "I'm  
not going to tolerate the kind of thing you did to Shiori-san,  
you got that?" She took another brief taste of her wine and  
glared at Tokiko.

Tokiko smiled, with amusement or condescension--probably  
both. "I understand. Though I don't think I really need to  
worry about it."

Utena scowled. "Pretty confident, aren't you?"

"Yes. You see, I slipped a very deadly poison into that   
wine before I gave it to you."

Utena paled slightly. She hadn't _seen_ anything that  
looked like that, but the woman had powers like Anthy, and-- 

"Just kidding."

With the crowd parting before her and closing behind her  
like the sea in the wake of a ship, Tokiko moved swiftly away,  
leaving Utena staring after her.

"I've got a bad feeling about tonight," she muttered, and  
finally took a look at the program she'd been handed by Mari  
coming in the door. "Huh? 'Music by the Ohtori Quartet?'"

In a coincidence that seemed entirely contrived, strings  
struck up a tragic melody from the raised stage at the far end of  
the gallery from her. Utena threw a glance across the crowded   
room to see three young men in identical black suits and a woman  
in a long blue dress seated on stools near the front of the  
stage, bows working skillfully.

The melody was familiar; she knew she'd heard it before, but  
she couldn't remember the piece or the composer. She frowned and  
browsed over the program again to see if they had a list of what  
was being played.

"Schubert."

She started at the familiar voice and turned. Akino Akami,  
she noted, moved very quietly.

"You were wondering what the piece was," the black-haired  
girl said, almost apologetically. "It's Schubert. The 'Death  
and the Maiden' quartet. I asked if they could play it; it's my  
favourite, you see."

"Thanks for the information," Utena said, and started to   
move away.

Long fingers touched her arm with an intimacy too daring for  
recent acquaintances, particularly in light of one of the   
acquaintances recently beating up the other's friend. "Wait,   
please. I'd like to talk to you."

Utena was sorely tempted to simply turn her back on the girl  
and walk off. Yes, she definitely would have disliked her even  
if she hadn't heard about her in advance from Nanami; there was  
something wrong about her, something in her eyes, so dark that  
pupil and iris seemed almost to have no division between them.  
The predatory look was gone, perhaps consciously forced down, but  
she still didn't like those eyes at all.

"What do you want?" she asked, ceasing to move away. Akami  
still hadn't removed her fingers; had she been male, Utena would  
have slapped them away by now.

"Looks like you've already heard about me from your friend  
Kiryuu," Akami said, smiling sardonically. At last, she took her  
hand away; reaching back with a motion so absent as too seem  
almost unconscious, she pulled her long braid over her shoulder   
and began to tuck stray hairs back into the tight coil of it.   
"Is my reputation so very poor among my predecessors on the   
Council?"

"I wasn't on the Council," Utena said shortly. She examined  
the younger woman, trying not to be obvious: beautiful, in a   
cold, hard way. A black-ice statue. She had never seen hair or  
eyes so dark. What do you know about her? she asked herself.   
Nanami says she's crazy; Tsuwabuki accidentally killed her   
brother...

"But you were involved with them," Akami said, interrupting  
her thoughts. "I've done a lot of research into the Council of   
seven years back, you see: Kiryuu Touga, Saionji Kyouichi,   
Arisugawa Juri, Kaoru Miki; respectively, President, Vice-  
President, Treasurer and Secretary. Kiryuu Nanami had some sort   
of adjunct role; the details aren't very clear about that. But   
your name never came up at all." She let her braid go so that it  
fell serpentine between the valley of her breasts, and her smile   
grew. "Not once. But I knew you existed." Something flashed   
deep in the dark depths of her eyes. "I _knew_."

Utena narrowed her eyes and tightened slightly the grip of  
her fingers on the narrow stem of her wine glass. "What are you  
talking about?"

Akami put the little finger of her left hand just below her  
thin red lips and tilted her head to the side, half-hooding her  
eyes, mockingly demure. "We could go somewhere more..." She   
looked about at the milling, chattering crowd as though at a  
horde of annoying rowdy animals. "...private to talk about it."

"I don't think so," Utena said flatly. The clear, sombre  
tones of the Schubert quartet sang out over the wash of voices  
like the gentle drift of clouds over the sullen earth.

Akami sighed theatrically. "You don't like me very much, do  
you, Tenjou Utena-san?"

"Nope."

"I'm disappointed. I was hoping you would like me, prince."

Utena, in the midst of raising her wine to her lips, froze.  
"What did you call me?"

"You heard me well enough," Akami said coolly. "Perhaps you  
don't remember. But I'll always remember. The smoke, the   
fire..." Her voice had become distant, and suddenly all artifice  
was gone from it; she sounded years younger, almost childlike.  
"And you..."

"What are you talking about?" The wine which had lain warm  
and pleasant in her belly moments before seemed suddenly to have  
fermented. "Why did you call me that?"

Before Akami could answer, they were interrupted by the  
arrival of Shiori, moving with flitting grace through the crowd  
to reach them. "There you are, Utena... I was looking all over  
for you." She curled her hand around Utena's forearm. "Juri was  
sure you'd want to see--" Suddenly, she noticed who Utena was  
with; very slightly, her eyes narrowed. "Or are you occupied?"

"We were just about to part, I believe," Akami said   
smoothly, regarding Shiori with thinly-veiled contempt. "Hello  
there; you're Arisugawa Juri's friend. I was told your name   
again when you came in and I was on the front doors, but I seem  
to have forgotten it. Do forgive me."

"No problem," Shiori said cheerfully. "I didn't bother  
remembering yours either." She steered Utena off into a thicker  
part of the crowd, leaving Akami behind. "You can't be left on  
your own for a minute, can you?" she tisked, keeping a gentle but  
firm grip on the surprised Utena's arm.

"I wasn't in any trouble," Utena murmured.

"You probably were; you just didn't realize it."

Utena laughed softly. "Could be. Thanks for the save, if I  
needed it."

Shiori's grip tightened almost imperceptibly. "You're  
welcome."

Utena looked at her, frowning slightly. "You feel okay,  
Shiori? Your face looks a little red."

"I'm fine," Shiori replied quickly. "They're just over this  
way..." The crowd thinned out a little towards one edge, near   
one of the flights of spiral stairs leading up to overhanging   
second-floor gallery. "Or, at least, they were..."

"Who?"

"Juri and Miki. Juri was sure you'd want to see him."

Utena nodded. "Yeah, I do."

"But they're not here any more..."

"Have you seen Nanami? She kinda took off on me."

For some reason, Shiori looked amused at that. "Yes; I   
spotted her talking to her brother when I was looking for you."

"Oh? That's good." Utena, slightly cheered by the   
information, smiled. "I know they're going to work things out."

Shiori pursed her lips in a pert frown. "I wouldn't be too  
sure about that. Last I saw, she was pointing her finger at him,  
and saying something that from the expression on his face looked  
quite rude, and then she stalked off in the direction of the   
wine."

"The wine's good," Utena said lamely, sipping the last of  
hers and casting her gaze about, hoping for a sight of Juri's   
distinctive curls through the crowd.

"Excellent hors-d'oeuvres, too," Shiori said. "There's   
these little rice crackers with a salmon paste, and..." She  
trailed away, frown deepening. "Now, where did they go? They  
said they'd wait right here while I went to find you."

"The smoke and the fire..." Utena murmured, feeling suddenly  
detached from the voices of the crowd, from the warm light cast   
by the two great chandeliers high above their heads, from the  
bitter sweetness of the Schubert and Shiori's hand on her   
arm... smoke and fire...

"Utena? What's that you said?"

"Nothing." She started and shook her head. "Hey, I   
haven't even had a look at any of the paintings yet."

"They're interesting. Take a look at this one..." Shiori  
brought her over to one large canvas already being appreciated by  
a half-dozen guests. The angles were jagged, the colours flowing  
into one another like melting wax; somewhat reminiscent of   
Picasso, Utena thought.

A figure in white, before a burning house. Around the house  
was a garden, and the garden burned as well. And the flames   
thrust like spears towards a sky empty of stars. Suddenly, she  
felt chilled to the bone. "Who's the artist?" she asked.

Shiori took a moment to answer, and her voice had lost some  
exuberance when she did. "Ohtori Kanae."

Utena blinked. "Really? Wow... she had talent."

Shiori nodded. "Yeah. Juri and I had seen some of her work  
before, in the display case in the hall, but it wasn't like this.  
They were conventional. This is..."

"Yeah. I know what you mean." Utena grimaced, winced.   
"Actually, no, I don't, really." 

Shiori shrugged. "I don't really know either. It's like  
there's a big story in there, but you're only seeing a fragment   
of it."

Utena became suddenly conscious of someone standing beside  
them; she glanced over to see Ohtori Hoshimi looking at the  
canvas, face utterly blank.

"Kanae kept these particular paintings very private; the   
ones she did in this style, I mean," she said after a moment,   
glancing at Utena. "This one was from shortly before she died.  
'The Dream of the Burning Boy', she called it. Good evening,  
Tenjou-san."

Utena smiled at Kanae's mother, then wondered if she  
shouldn't have when it was too late to change the fact; the other  
woman wasn't smiling, after all. "Good evening, Ohtori-san."   
She glanced at Shiori. "Shiori, this is Ohtori Hoshimi-san;   
Ohtori-san, this is Takatsuki Shiori."

Shiori took her hand off Utena's arm and extended it. "Nice  
to meet you."

Hoshimi didn't offer hers in return. "Forgive me," she  
said, raising it slightly from her side so that Utena and Shiori  
could see the white bandages wrapped around it so that only the   
tips of her fingers showed, "I injured my hand recently."

Shiori dropped her hand without a word. "Sorry. I should  
have noticed."

"Not at all. The fault lies with me, for being so clumsy as  
to do myself an injury before such an event." Hoshimi smiled  
dryly and sipped red wine from a half-full glass held in her  
uninjured hand. "It's nice to see you here, Tenjou-san. Did  
Touga bring you as his date?"

Utena managed not to wince. "No. I got invited on my own  
merits."

"Quite so, quite so," Hoshimi said, tasting her wine again.  
"I do wish Tsukiichi could have been here tonight, but his   
illness keeps him generally confined to the house."

"That's too bad," Utena said, cursing herself for sounding  
stupid even as she spoke. It was hard even to be in Ohtori   
Hoshimi's presence; it brought to mind Kanae, poor dead Kanae,   
who never really had any idea of what kind of monster she'd been  
engaged to, who probably never had any idea of what he got up to  
behind her back with, oh, say, her future sister-in-law's so-  
called best friend--

Shiori had asked Hoshimi something that Utena, lost again in  
her thoughts, had entirely missed, and now Hoshimi was answering:  
"...I do wish he was here now, he's been a pillar of strength for  
Tsukiichi and I ever since Kanae died, but he's a very busy   
man... he'll be here for the speech, however." She looked over  
her shoulder. "Oh, there's the mayor; pardon me. Nice to meet  
you, Takatsuki-san." She moved languidly away.

"I'm guessing from the context you asked her where Akio   
was?"

Shiori nodded, and nervously licked her lips. "Yes. I   
hadn't seen him. I was wondering."

A voice--Juri's--quietly called their name from above their  
heads. "Shiori! Utena!" They looked up to see Juri and Miki  
leaning over the railings of the gallery above them, both smiling  
broadly. "Up here."

Utena's gaze travelled up through the empty space between   
her and Kaoru Miki as though through turgid air. The last of the  
five, she realized, faintly startled by the fact that she hadn't  
thought of it before; completing the set. We meet again for the  
first time, Miki-kun, Mickey; out of all of them, you were the  
only one in those days that I would really call a friend. 

Shiori had a hand on her arm again, and was gently coaxing  
her up the stairs. She followed like a sleepwalker, with too  
many thoughts winging about her like a flock of dark birds: black  
swords and smoke and fire and the burning gardens, and over it   
all Akio's smiling face.

But it was Miki, Miki who was smiling, and clasping her hand  
so warmly, as though he hadn't forgotten her at all, even though   
he had to be reminded of her name, of who she'd been, and maybe   
that was a little suspicious, but this was _Miki_, after all...

* * *

Once, he had been Mikage Souji, and before that he had been   
Professor Nemuro; these days, he tended not to think of himself  
as having any name at all. Names held no meaning; names were  
only words. Professor Nemuro Mikage Chirikazu Souji. Nothing of  
him in any of those.

He watched the people move through the gallery as an   
entomologist might watch the milling of ants or the solitary  
dartings of a dragonfly. He gave them names on a whim, whether   
he recognized them or not: these two shall be the Lovers, and   
this shall be the Fiery Angel, and this one the Poison-Bird...

Time had passed for him like a river since his graduation:  
slow and smooth in one moment, jagged and roaring and broken into  
scattered spray by rocky rapids in the next. He lived time like   
a dream, skipping to the important parts, the parts that   
interested him, without having to bother with such things as  
movement, boredom. He wondered if one day he would discover how  
to rewind, or to fast forward; how to pause. How to stop it   
altogether. How to eject the tape of this universe and stick in   
a new one and watch that instead. Would he have someone to make   
commentary to there, as well? Here he had the Black Rose, and  
though she was poor company (he realized this from a purely  
intellectual standpoint, emotions being one of the things left  
behind in the silt of his previous life along with a sense of   
time or a physical body or touch, taste, scent, sweat, hunger,  
thirst, urination, defecation etc), he thought that she was  
better than none.

As he had told her, he was very interested to see how things  
would turn out. He felt no emotional attachment to the   
characters--it was a philosophical dialogue, not a soap opera.  
One side or another would destroy the rest and justify it by  
resort to its own particular ideology. All the same in the end,  
really. 

He remembered a time when he had been much like this,  
knowing the equations that told the mass/density/weight of stars,  
but without any appreciation for their supposed beauty. Then he  
had changed, and now he had changed back. Easier this way.   
Better this way. Where had feeling got him before? A puppet  
puppetmaster, hiding in the shadows, ultimately fading away into  
them. My memorial is finished; it shall outlast nothing. Better  
from a standpoint of self-interest not to feel at all.

Even she didn't make him feel anything. She, whom he had  
sinned for to grasp eternity. She'd had no gratitude. He'd done   
it for her. All for her. And she had thrown his efforts back in  
his face like they were meaningless filth. He had grasped   
eternity now, after stumbling about in the shadows, confused and  
manipulated by inconvenient emotion; cold, pure, icily beautiful  
eternity. And she, no matter how youthful she might look now, no  
matter how beautiful she still might be, would eventually grow  
old. Her flesh would sag, her strength would fade, her eyes  
would grow dim with cataracts; she would grow old, and die.   
Better for her if she had stayed with him--she should not have   
fled from him into the flames. They could have had eternity   
together, could have saved her brother; he could have given her  
that. Would have given her that, if only, if only...

He watched her find her niece and speak to her. So  
wasteful, such feelings of attachment; were she not blinded by  
them, she, who was so clever, would have known what the girl was.

He watched the niece (whom she undoubtedly thought as of the  
daughter she had never had) introduce her lover as her friend, as  
the girlfriend of her dead brother. He watched them exchange  
words of meaningless condolence with one another. 

Oh, God, how much he wanted to touch, speak to, her.

* * *

She woke up, with her eyes still closed, to Kyouichi reciting   
Henry Vaughn in the voice of the shell-shocked.

"I saw Eternity the other night, like a great ring of pure   
and endless light. All calm, as it was bright..." His words   
dissolved away into choked expurgations halfway between sobs and  
coughs. "And round... and round... beneath it..."

Anthy opened her eyes. She was lying under a tree, and she  
could see the night sky, hung with strange stars, through the  
interstices between branches. The season felt like the close of  
summer, or the beginning of autumn; beneath her was cool grass,  
ticklish against her bare arms.

"A ring of pure and endless light..." He laughed bitterly,  
and audibly swallowed. "No. Eternity is a _giant snake_..."

"No," she said, softly. He was sitting beside her, back   
against the trunk of the tree, knees hugged to his chest. 

He looked down at her with the wide, frightened eyes of a  
child. "You're awake." Accusingly, happily. 

"It's not." She sat up, feeling weary to her very bones,   
and looked around for the car. Nowhere in sight. "It's just a  
symbol."

"An usually verbose and living symbol, then," he replied  
stonily. He stood and offered her his hand. "Now that you're  
awake, I suppose we should journey on."

She accepted, allowing him to help her to her feet.   
"Where's the car?"

"I don't know. I woke up lying beside you under the tree."  
He coloured a little, and looked away from her, shoving his hands  
into his pockets. "Do you have any idea where we are?"

She tilted her head back and stared at the stars; unfamiliar  
constellations. They were on the edge of a thick forest; behind  
them were grasslands liberally spotted by pale wildflowers, and   
she could sense, distantly, flowing water. The air was   
unnaturally still, empty of nocturnal animal cries or the sound  
of insects; the stillness of the unformed, of something waiting   
to be born.

"Come," she said, and began to walk into the woods.

"I asked you if you knew where we were," he said as he  
followed, aggrieved at her lack of response, and, she admitted,  
justifiably so.

"We are going to Utena," she said firmly. "The serpent is  
wise, and the serpent is cunning, but not as the ways of a man or  
woman may be wise and cunning. Had I recollected better, I would  
have phrased my request more carefully."

"I don't understand any of this at all, you know."

"I know." And she looked at him with some affection,   
smiling, hoping it would put him at ease. She was a little out   
of her depth in this, which made him very far out indeed.

"So all I can do at this point is trust in you to bring me  
back safely, I suppose."

"It is a burden I accept willingly."

He shrugged, and finally, faintly, returned her smile.   
"Just so you understand how things stand."

They walked between the trees, and, as in a dream, then they  
walked beside a turgid river, and there were no trees. Overhead,  
the stars changed places, and familiar constellations emerged:   
the Great Bear, the Cauldron, the Double-Headed Axe, and others.

The rushes along the riverside were straight as the blades  
of swords, and stood arrayed like soldiers at an inspection. The  
entire world seemed hard and brittle, ungently fragile, like a  
crystal decanter that could explode into slivering fragments at  
the slightest impact. The night sky was a slab of black ice with  
diamonds embedded in it.

"Just what are we going to find if we get to Ohtori? When  
we get to Ohtori. I apologize."

She glanced over at him, recollecting the primal hatred and  
power of the red eyes, and said, "I am uncertain. My small   
friend attends Utena, but I receive only vague impressions from  
him, none at all at such a distance as this."

He raised an eyebrow at that. "And you have no other way?"

"None of efficacy."

She hoped for reasons not entirely known to her that he   
would not press the issue further; her casual defeat by the red-  
eyed malice waiting in Ohtori ("Mama doesn't like you") seemed   
somehow a vastly private thing. She held no memories of being so  
easily overcome upon the weft of the dreaming lands, but then, as  
recent events had shown, her memory was hardly a reliable thing.

To her relief, he said nothing more of it, but merely  
chuckled ruefully, a certain weary acceptance of the state of  
things between them inherent in it. "This has, I can at least   
say, been a new experience." He brought out a hand from his  
pocket, to the sound of white pills rattling in their plastic  
vial. He frowned, stared at them for a moment, then glanced to  
his wrist. "My watch is still stopped."

"You'd probably do well to take one now," she said, gently.  
"It's been a while."

He nodded and looked towards the slow, narrowing flow of   
the river. "Is it safe to drink the water?"

"I would advise against it."

He turned his back to her. The cap of the pill bottle  
scraped softly as he opened it. He dry-swallowed a pill, closed  
the bottle, and put it back in his pocket. Then he bent forward  
slightly, coughing; she worriedly moved forward to hit him on the  
back, but he held up a hand and she stopped. He gulped audibly,  
then straightened and turned to her, grinning sardonically.

"It's a hard pill to swallow, sometimes," he said.

She winced and refused to laugh. They walked on through the  
stillness, the only sound beyond grass beneath their feet that of  
the river's languid quest for the sea. It continued to narrow as  
they followed it, until it was only a small trickle of water  
struggling through a hardened bed of mud. Then, past the point  
where it would have been of necessity or use, a bridge came into   
view, low and wooden, with red paper lanterns burning--a cold   
light, neither comfort nor warmth in it--atop the high pillars   
flanking either side.

They crossed, and at the other side found themselves on a  
pleasant, tree-lined street, in what for all appearances and  
purposes seemed a prosperous residential neighbourhood in modern-  
day Japan. The bridge was gone, the river was gone, the hard  
night sky remained, starless now, overcast by smoke from the   
burning house. Tongues of flame leapt from the shattered   
windows, a bed of fire burned upon the sagging roof; around it,   
trees and gardens burned, sending up ash and glowing cinders into  
the air upon the burning currents. Smells in the air were   
scorched roses and roasted lilies, mingling with burning wood   
into a heady kind of incense. The burning of the house was like   
an independent thing; neither of the neighbouring houses seemed   
in danger of partaking of the blaze, nor were there any signs--  
lit windows, sirens, neighbours coming forth--that anyone was   
taking notice beyond the two children, a boy and a girl,   
standing in the street and watching the house burn.

Anthy slowly approached them, not looking back to see  
whether or not Kyouichi followed. Their quiet, childish voices  
reached her. They were holding hands.

"W-what about Mother and Father?" Shaky; he was crying.

The girl, voice firm almost to callousness, replied, "I   
expect they're still in there."

"Hello," said Anthy.

The girl, a slim little figure in a white night-gown, with  
black hair plaited into two long braids, turned and looked back.   
"Hello. Are you a princess? You look like one."

"I'm not a princess."

The girl, whom Anthy guessed to be about ten, scratched the  
side of her nose with her free hand. "If you're looking for the  
prince, she's gone away."

The boy, alike enough in looks to be a twin, said, "Who are  
you talking to?"

"To a lady. She says she isn't a princess. Can't you see   
her?"

"No."

"That's strange. You couldn't see the prince, either."

Anthy swallowed the lump in her throat, and asked, "What  
prince?"

The girl looked thoughtful. "She wore white, and had long  
hair. Her hair was the colour of Mother's roses. She was very  
beautiful, and very strong. I held my brother's hand, and she  
held my hand and led us out of the fire. I wish I had known that  
girls could become princes." She paused for a moment, and   
regarded Anthy with dark, hungry eyes, far too old for such a   
young girl. "Princes have power, you see."

The boy began to sob loudly, calling out for his mother and  
father. The girl put her arm around him, more like a gesture of  
ownership than one of affection or comfort.

"Why do you want power, little girl?" Anthy asked, barely  
able to murmur the words, almost overcome with a grief   
unbearable. That a child so young should have such eyes...

"I do not like being called a little girl," the girl said,  
scowling. "I have a name. And power... no one can touch you, if  
you have power. No one can touch you if you don't want them to."

The house shivered, and, slowly, ponderously, began to  
collapse in upon itself as fire devoured its support beams.

Anthy stretched out a hand, palm flat, towards the girl.  
"It's hard being a child," she said softly. "Children can't help  
but be weak, having to rely on others as they do. Nevertheless,  
once lost, the treasures of childhood cannot be regained."

Calmly, the girl laid her little cold hand in Anthy's, and  
looked back towards the fire, her other arm still holding her  
sobbing brother. "There are no treasures in this place."

Closing her hand like a gentle trap over the hand of the  
girl, Anthy asked, with fire dancing in her eyes, "What is your  
name?"

The girl opened her mouth to answer, but then there was a  
sensation not unlike a great rushing breath of wind, and she and  
her brother had been wiped from existence as though they had been  
only colourful figures drawn in chalk upon a slate. The house  
and its surrounding gardens continued merrily to burn.

Kyouichi was behind her. "Anthy, who were you talking to?"

"To the children. The boy and the girl. Didn't you see  
them?" Her voice seemed distant, not entirely her own;   
practised, as though she had rehearsed the words she spoke a  
hundred times over, drilled them into her head until they were  
second nature, and then they had waited for years, decades,  
centuries to come forth from her lips.

"No."

"That's odd."

Bowing as a dying animal bows upon its front legs briefly  
before falling upon its side, the front of the house crashed  
down. 

"Children?" As seemed usual to her now, his voice was lost  
and confused.

"Two of them. A boy and a girl. They were watching the  
house burn. I think their parents were inside."

She raised the hand that had recently gripped the hand of  
the little girl, vanished like a dream or phantasm, and touched  
her lips. Roses, burning roses.

"None of this is real, is it?" Kyouichi asked softly. He  
kicked at the pavement, and seemed surprised when it did not  
crack beneath his heel, or reveal itself to be so soft that his  
foot could sink right through. "Perhaps you and I are just in a  
coffin together."

"A hearse."

"What?"

"A hearse," she repeated. "Together." She looked about,  
then began to walk along the street, away from the burning house.  
"Let's go this way."

"Why?"

"It's as good as any other way."

"Tell me... is this real, or not?"

"What's real, really? Real is real and false is false.   
It's just not always easy to tell."

"Should I take that to mean you don't know yourself?"

"You could."

"Anthy..."

She stopped walking, and glanced apologetically at him.  
"Forgive me. I'm being needlessly oblique. It's a habit I must  
break myself of. No, I don't know. I am more or less responding  
to these things as they come, quite unprepared for what may  
happen next." She scowled and bunched her fists at her sides,  
tight enough that they ached. "It is not a manner in which I   
like to approach things."

Now they were walking up a hillside, mostly bare earth with  
a few scrubby patches of grass. The neighbourhood of the burning  
house was nowhere to be seen, had dissolved away behind them like  
an image in broken water. Overhead, the constellation of the   
Dioscuri burned. The pregnant deadness continued here; no wind,  
no scent now that the burning was gone.

Beside her, Kyouichi breathed heavily, as though weary from  
exertions. He paused and took off his green sweater, the right  
shoulder torn from the Knight of Pentacles' blade, and looped it  
over his arm.

"I'm hot," he said by way of explanation. They continued up  
the hill, consciously making sure not to tread upon the grass   
that struggled up from the rocky soil. At the top of the hill  
stood a circle of stones of no particular resemblance to one  
another, slender and rough or squat and smooth by turn. Anthy  
approached it as she might a holy place, and, once closer, with  
Kyouichi a few steps behind, she saw the woman who stood, who had  
always been standing, in the centre of the stones.

She wore white, and she bore a sword at her side, and her  
cape flowed as her long hair flowed, in a wind that Anthy could   
not feel. Her eyes were blue and fiercely gentle, like the sea;   
she was beautiful beyond telling, and light shone from her breast  
and her brow.

She turned, as Anthy knew, had always known, she would, and  
spoke. Time and the world stood still upon her words; in the sky  
above the stones, the Twins shone with a hard and merciless   
light.

"Who are you?" was what she had said then. 

end of penumbra


End file.
